Southwest Philadelphia

Southwest Philadelphia is a section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It originated as Kingsessing Township, which was located north of the Delaware River and west of the Schuylkill River. Colonists from New Sweden had established the village of Kingsessing in 1646, starting the settlement of the Philadelphia area, and the township was founded by William Penn. The township consisted of rural farms, orchards, and market gardens. In 1854, the township and village were incorporated into Philadelphia, and, until the 1960s, it was an Irish-American neighborhood. During the Vietnam War, Vietnamese refugees and African-Americans from nearby West Philadelphia settled in the area; Liberian immigrants later arrived in large numbers, along with immigrants from Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Cote d'Ivoire. In 2010, Southwest Philadelphia had a population of 123,829 people.